Remember that night we went to Hooters?
It was the night before the Franz Ferdinand concert. I laughed at the idea, but I didn’t mind going in there with you for a quick bite.

I never told you this, but I almost worked at Hooters once. I was 23, in between jobs and desperate to keep up with my rent in NYC. Yes, I’d walked into a Hooters and applied to work as a server. Eventually, I decided being gawked at wasn’t the job for me.

I became a writer, instead.

That night, I ate mozzarella sticks and drank beer with you. I don’t drink beer; I’m too much of a princess. Usually, you made me feel like a princess – and I loved you for it – but that night, I wasn’t your princess. I was just your best friend, and that’s what I loved about being with you.

I loved you because you loved me even when I didn’t try; frizzy hair in my face, beer and mozzarella cheese spilling down the white tee you’d bought me the day before. I loved not having to try. I loved being your best friend.

[I love(d) the way you love(d) me.]

That night, we stepped outside to tipsily smoke a cigarette. A waiter was already out there. He told us he thought we had the kind of love that everyone hopes to find someday, the kind that most people don’t find. We asked him why he thought that. He said, looking at us, he “just knew.”

He was right.

You said we didn’t have an Instagram kind of love.
We didn’t.
We never travelled internationally. You hated posing for pictures; I always preferred candids. I knew what we had, and I knew we didn’t have to put on a show. I knew that you were mine and I was yours and that the whole world knew it because our love was louder than Instagram.

I know we started as fuck buddies and fell madly in love, but that we’re better as friends, and didn’t make it as a couple. But I couldn’t be friends with you because hearing your voice makes me sad, and so I made us block each other.

That hurts my heart every day. I know you’re all sorts of fucked up, but I’m fucked up, too. We were fucked up together, and we fucked it up together.

Unlike other guys, you weren’t intimidated by me. You called me out on my bullshit. I always told you you were full of it, but I’m just as full of it, and you knew it. That scared me.

I knew I loved you because you weren’t my type. In fact, you were the exact opposite. Not quiet, reserved, moody or mysterious, but loud, obnoxious, funny, spectacular, beautiful. My world has always been a dark sky, and you were just the firework it needed.

We didn’t make sense. But you made me realize you can’t help who you fall for.

They say that with time, it gets easier; it doesn’t. Because I didn’t know what my life was missing until I met you. And not enough friends, music, writing, TV shows, casual sex, crying sessions, puppy cuddles, mommy hugs, chocolate bars can fill it.

I’m still waiting to enjoy food again. The last time I slept was in your arms.